1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to warehouses. In particular, the present invention is related to systems for efficiently storing and retrieving goods in warehouses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Warehouses and warehouse storage systems are known in the art. There are many different systems used in large warehouses to store products. Each of the systems employs the basic procedure of storing product on some sort of pallet storage system or gravity flow rail system.
The most well known warehousing system utilizes pallets loaded with cases of product stored in pallet racks. The pallets are moved by vehicles known in the art as forklifts from the area of the warehouse where they are received to the storage locations, and the pallets are placed on racks. When the containers are needed for shipment, a forklift and a driver are required to remove the pallet from storage and place it in a selection location. The shipper then selects containers to be shipped to stores.
A small system used in warehousing is the gravity flow rail system. This system requires forklifts, forklift drivers and laborers to break the pallet loads down and store containers on rollers. The gravity flow rail is limited in that it can handle only hard bottom cases. Products stored in bags or pails will not flow directly on the gravity flow rail system.
Exemplary of additional warehouses and warehouse systems of the prior art are those disclosed in the following U.S. Patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,023 discloses a warehousing apparatus which handles product in pallet load quantity throughout unloading, storage, and retrieval from storage. Product is stored on gravity roller conveyors whereas the new system of the present invention handles all product as single cases and stores them on gravity chutes. Pallet loads of product must be retrieved from storage by a depalletizer and delivered to the order-filling conveyors, whereas the warehouse system of the invention requires no such operation and single cases are available for order picking directly from the storage chutes. At best, the patented system has a storage capacity of only two layers high whereas the warehouse system of the invention will find the entire working cubic space of a warehouse.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,434,604 discloses a material handling system including a method to store palletized units of product by conveying pallets across the storage area on rolling pallets not gravity chutes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,561,619 discloses a warehousing system and apparatus therefor that takes product and stores it in single case quantity, then presents the cases for order selection. The patented system stores incoming product from trucks and rail cars on pallets as the primary means of storage, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention uses single case storage as the primary means of storage.
The pallets in the patented system must be moved by a fork lift with an operator to a rack adjacent to the single case roller conveyors, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention requires no such move. A warehouseman utilizing the patented system must unstack the pallet onto roller conveyors that feed the order selection station, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention requires no such operation. Furthermore, the warehouse system of the present invention uses gravity chutes instead of roller conveyors.
The patented system is shown as a single row of storage that must be repeated in its entirety many times over to match the need of a warehouse. For each row, the patented system uses a mechanical elevated conveyor platform to bring the warehouseman in contact with cases to be shipped, and these cases are sent by conveyor to the loading station where another warehouseman stacks the cases for shipment. An elevator is required to move the cases to the shipping conveyor. The warehouse system of the present invention eliminates these steps by bringing all cases to ground level, thus allowing one warehouseman to be used on each row. The patented system requires four warehousemen (fork lift operator, pallet unstacker, order selector, and stacker) per row to perform the same function.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,581,921 discloses a method of processing articles on endless conveyor in a warehouse that is a palletized and totally mechanized storage system. The patented system conveys product across the warehouse on conveyors and has no gravity chutes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,305 discloses a loading dock structure and small goods handling system for a trunk line terminal for over-the-road hauling carriers including a loading dock conveyor in the form of an endless belt or chain extending directly through an opening in the loading dock surface to provide a device for conveying small goods and packages to a lower level of a warehouse or terminal for sorting and distribution of the small goods according to delivery zones and immediate dispatch to respective zone carriers parked at the same terminal.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,675,801 discloses a method and apparatus for facilitating the stacking, storing, loading, unloading, selection, and separation of elongated bar and other similar materials, in which an elongated roller conveyor is sectionalized to provide a main material loading and unloading section in association with a supply feeder section at one end and an exit discharge section at its other end, a pallet pan being provided for the elongated material which can either be conveyed to the main section by a crane, fork-lift truck or the like, or delivered directly from the feed section of the conveyor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,299 discloses a warehousing system including a device to store and retrieve a pallet load of products, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention stores and retrieves single containers of a product, not a pallet load of a given product.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,937 discloses an automatic storage and distribution system which automatically dispenses items from storage lanes and stores product in a single line along product lanes and uses pallet loads of product to replenish the storage system, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention stores the product directly from the receiving vehicle.
The patented system requires a conveyor at each product lane in order for the automatic system to work, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention does not and therefore costs less to install. This patented system uses standard gravity conveyors as the product storage lanes, whereas, the warehouse system of the present invention uses slide chutes made of steel or plastic materials.
The patented system must use mechanical release mechanisms on each product lane, whereas, the warehouse system of the invention requires no release mechanism. The patented system requires a retractable arm operated by an air cylinder to move the product elements in each lane backwards to break the static friction between the product carton and the gravity conveyor, whereas, the warehouse system of the present invention uses an inexpensive pull rope system or the angle of the chutes to break the static friction between the product carton an the chutes.
The patented system requires a control system to release the products in each lane, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention does not. The patented system requires a holding clamp on each product lane to hold back product in the lane, whereas, the warehouse system of the present invention requires no such holding clamp.
The patented system requires an expensive hydraulic jack system to change the pitch angle of each product lane which allows the mechanical releasing system to work effectively, whereas the new system requires no mechanical release system and no expensive jack system to change the pitch angle.
This patented system uses a rolling depalletizing vehicle, fork lifts, a pallet storage area and two men to replenish product into the product lanes, whereas, the new system use none of these above items.
The patented system uses a depalletizer with two operators, a forklift with an operator, and a conveyor system to each product row to replenish product in each product lane and can only send product to rows that open on the vertical plane. The warehouse system of the present invention is designed to eliminate the need for pallets, pallet storage areas, fork lifts in the replenishing step, operators to operate depalletizers, and the conveyors to each row of product lanes. In fact, the warehouse system of the invention eliminates the replenishing mode all together in that the product is conveyed directly from the receiving trucks or rail cars to the storage chutes without additional handling.
The patented system uses gravity conveyors to handle and store product in product lanes which cannot by used for soft bottom or irregular bottom containers such as sacks of potatoes and is restricted hard bottom cartons, whereas, the new system can handle any container such as sacks of potatoes, bagged items such as dog food, sugar, products in pails, frozen foods, produce food, etc.
The patented system with it mechanical releasing mechanism cannot operate in a freezer warehouse, whereas, the new system without a mechanical dispensing system can.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,499 discloses a storage device with radiated command signal for storing a number of different articles including containers which are placed in a receiving frame on resting surfaces and acted on in an ejection direction which is perpendicular to the lengthwise direction of the resting surfaces. The containers are held in the receiving frame by a holdback device which can be overcome by action of a release device, each container having, associated with it, a release device and a receiving and code recognition device with which a given code is associated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,745 discloses a mechanized carton picker which uses a shelf latching system on each level to store product, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention uses less expensive gravity chutes made of steel of plastic materials.
The patented system requires a conveyor under each row of storage, whereas the warehouse system of the present invention system does not. The patented system requires more space for one carton of product than the warehouse system of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,449 discloses an automatic storage/retrieval apparatus for articles in which inner pickers are provided for respective stages of racks of storage ares to be movable on rails. Operations of the inner pickers are independently controlled in the respective rack stages by optical communication through optical communication through optical communication units.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,572 discloses a goods handling method and apparatus thereof for carrying in or carrying out goods with respect to storage facilities having multirow and multistage storing spaces in which cases are stored single file within a rack system. The method of input and output into the rack system is entirely different from the warehouse system of the present invention and the rack system of the patented system uses roller conveyors to store product within the rack system.